RFID Tool Tracking System

There is no meaningful per-tool figure, because the tags are rarely the biggest line in the budget. Cost is driven by how many tools you tag and how they split by tag type — a miniature ceramic tag for spanners and a larger rugged on-metal tag for a torque wrench are not the same item — then by the number of crib cabinets and shelf antenna zones, how many gate portals and handhelds you need, encoding, laser-marked serials, and the integration work into your maintenance system. Identium quotes against a written specification, so send a tool list by category, the cabinet or gate layout, and the system it has to feed. Budget for the survey too: making a loaded steel drawer read reliably is usually an antenna and zoning exercise rather than a tag-selection one.

Not continuously. Passive UHF tool tracking is event-based: it records when and where a tool was last read — leaving the crib, passing a gate portal, or picked up in a handheld sweep — and the position between those reads is inferred rather than measured. For accountability, overdue chasing and shift reconciliation that is enough, and it is what most tool loss actually needs. If you need live position on something moving across a large yard, such as a trolley or a high-value instrument, that is a different technology: BLE beacons with fixed receivers, which cost considerably more per tagged item because each one carries a battery and has to be maintained. Identium supplies BLE beacons alongside passive UHF, and a common split is passive tags across the whole tool population with BLE reserved for a handful of high-value items.

As of 2026 you do not need an individual radio licence or a spectrum fee to operate RFID readers on India's delicensed 865-868 MHz UHF band, within the power and bandwidth limits set by the 2021 WPC short-range-device rules. The obligation sits with the equipment rather than the site: readers and antennas have to be approved for that band, and imported radio equipment normally goes through WPC's equipment-approval route, so ask any supplier for their approval paperwork rather than accepting a datasheet claim. Identium is BIS certified, and our UHF readers and antennas are WPC-approved for India's licence-exempt UHF RFID band. One trap worth knowing: the United States uses roughly 902-928 MHz, which is not India's allocation, and imported hardware often arrives configured for the wrong region. Notifications are revised periodically, so confirm the current WPC position before you freeze a tender specification.

Usually yes, and the mounting decides it rather than the tag. On a flat, clean, non-critical face — a wrench shank, a drill body, a gauge housing — a small on-metal tag bonds on with industrial adhesive, and epoxy gives a better hold where the surface runs hot or sits in solvent. Where there is no flat area, an existing recess will often take a tag, or a shallow pocket can be milled. But treat cutting metal as a decision for your own engineers, not a default: never drill, mill or rivet a load-bearing or pressure-bearing tool, a lifting accessory, a calibration reference face, a measuring or sealing surface, or anywhere added mass changes balance or grip. For consumables and regularly reground tools, tag the holder, case or shadow-board position instead of the item.

Treat it as evidence for the count rather than a replacement for it. RFID reconciles a crib or shadow board in one sweep instead of item by item, names the tool that is missing and shows who last held it — exactly where a manual count is slow and error-prone. But a reader confirms a tag, not a tool: if a tag has detached and stayed in the box, the reconciliation reads clean while the item is still in the airframe. So bond tags properly, audit periodically for tag loss, and keep the visual check on the shadow board. FOD control also sits inside your own approved maintenance procedures and your regulator's current expectations — DGCA in India — so get the method accepted before you depend on it, and keep the records the audit will ask for.